This first-ever edition of Professors' Corner was contributed by Dr. Jan Dauve and Dr. Jim Spain.

Welcome! Whether you are an experienced student returning to Columbia or a student new to Mizzou, it is great to have you at MU. As you begin the semester, there are a number of exciting opportunities available to each of you. You have a 4.0 GPA to start the semester! Will you make the Dean's List? What plans are you making for a study abroad experience? Have you considered a summer internship to explore career opportunities for life after graduation? What clubs and organizations will you join? What new people will you meet? It is a great time to be a Tiger!

How great depends on you! Education and the experiences one can have at college are vehicles for change and improvement. Change can be unnerving, but change can also be fun. Positive changes help us grow to become who we want to become. Hopefully, these changes will help you become the person highly sought after by companies that provide exciting and rewarding career opportunities. And, hopefully these changes will prepare you for life-long learning and life-long success.

We have worked with a large number of students here at Mizzou, and we would like to share with you some advice on how to achieve success as an MU Tiger!

Dauve and Spain's Top Ten

1. Be yourself and believe in yourself. Do not try to become something other people think you should be. Over time, each of us changes. It is not necessary to rush to become someone you aren't. To be yourself, you must believe in yourself. You are among some of the best college students in the world. You were admitted to one the world's best universities. Each one of you is capable of being a successful student and graduate of this institution. Be proud of who you are, where you are from, and who you hope to become.

2. Manage your time. It is your most valuable resource, and it becomes more precious as you get busier and busier during the semester. Buy a daily or weekly planner. Conserve your time and invest it in the things that are most important to you! Plan so you are prepared to seize the moment. Plans aren't meant to be rigid and unchanging. One common trait of successful people is their ability to adapt. Plans are the baselines that help keep us moving forward. Plans should include time allocated for study, work, fun and adventure. Planning should not stifle spontaneity but should allow us to have the flexible time available to try new and exciting things. Get lucky. Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. Without preparation, we are not ready for some opportunities. Sometimes we even learn about additional opportunities as we prepare and plan.

3. Go to class. When talking with a faculty member recently about teaching, she made the comment that she does not like to ask questions on exams that she has not addressed in class. This is very common. The way to get the best insight into a course is to go to class. If lecture and in-class discussion weren't important to learning, we wouldn't use them in education. Repetition is important in learning. Read the chapter and review your notes, and then the class lecture/discussion will be an additional review. When you have questions or ideas, talk with the instructor. Get involved during class. If you go and don't take advantage of the presentation, you are the one who now has less time and more work to learn the same material. And remember, if it isn't important, most faculty members don't talk about it much during class. Class helps you focus on and learn the most important material. We call that success!

4. Learn how to learn. This statement might seem silly to the world's brightest and best, but learning is something many of you take for granted. As the material becomes more complex and difficult, you will need to have good learning skills. These skills come with a lifetime guarantee. If you learn how to learn, you will be more successful in life! Understand how you learn the best. In other words, what is your learning style? How do you become a better learner? Are you an effective note taker? Sometimes small changes can be very helpful. There are ways to take notes that actually help you learn. For example, leave space in your notes so you can come back later and fill in or modify the notes so they are more accurate and complete. That little change has helped other students (including us) to be better note takers and better learners - with more time. How does that save time? Your notes are better organized and more complete, so you get more out of them. Results? More learning, higher grades, more and better career opportunities that await you.

5. Attack Mizzou! That's right, attack Mizzou. There are so many things happening on this campus. You will miss some important opportunities unless you are searching for your chance to participate. Student clubs and organizations are great places to learn about campus opportunities. CAFNR has a great support system. The Career Services office can help with a variety of career related issues, internships, resumes, mock interviews, and career searches, just to mention a few. Don't miss the CAFNR Career Day (a part of Ag week) this fall. Remember to investigate the study abroad programs available to CAFNR students. Why do they call the Student Success Center the Student Success Center? It has the Learning Center staffed by people that offer programs to help you be academically SUCCESSful. Use the support system that is here. It was put in place to help you. There are many others, some you may have heard about in Summer Welcome.

6. Talk to your adviser. Your adviser is an obvious choice for first contact to begin your attack. The more your adviser knows about you, the more likely you will learn about a campus job, a new scholarship, an internship or other opportunity that might develop. This is often the person you will ask to write a letter of recommendation for you. It is difficult for someone to write a good letter if they don't know you. So go meet them and let them know about you and your interests.

7. Find a mentor. This can be your advisor, but it may be a member of the staff, another student, a graduate student, or an employer. It might even be your parent or another family member. Whoever it is, they will help guide you to new opportunities. It is likely you already have benefited from mentors at home. What attributes were important to you in the person you relied on to help you get where you are today? A mentor is someone you trust, someone who is successful, and someone who cares about your long-term success. Sometimes the guidance is related to small things, other times it can be life changing. Selecting and using mentors has been important thus far, is important as a student at Mizzou, and will be important throughout your career. Choose this trusted friend carefully and wisely.

8. Make new friends. Whenever you go somewhere new, it is great to have someone's support. There are lots of ways to make new friends: sports; clubs and organizations; residence hall activities and events; Greek life; classes; or just walking around campus. One of our favorite "new friend stories" is when two people from very different backgrounds - say one grew up on a farm and the other in a large city - get together and take the other one home for the weekend. Learning about others - fun things they do and their approaches to life - can be fascinating. Most times, you will find that although we grew up with different experiences, the things most important in our lives will be very similar.

9. Have fun. If you are not enjoying what you are doing, either you are doing it wrong or you are doing the wrong thing. We don't mean the "wrong thing" as it relates to a "bad thing." It might be that the courses and career goals really don't fit you and your strengths and passion. College can and should be fun. Selecting a different major that better fits you will make college fun. Learning is fun. Think about when you learned about your favorite hobby or pastime. It was great to learn about it. Our faculty members really enjoy the subjects they teach. Each of them chose a particular subject to spend a lifetime studying. Find the same kind of passion for your studies. That is not to say you will never take a course that you would prefer not to take. Check your attitude at the classroom door and attack the course to your benefit! In life, we all are responsible for things we would prefer not doing. Develop the discipline to do these things with a passion and enthusiasm! After all, they help you really appreciate the FUN!

10. Have fun. We already mentioned this one, but we like it a lot so we thought we should say it again. Get involved. The structure and networking that result from getting involved cannot be duplicated. This is also a way to make new friends. It is a way to learn about effective leadership. It can provide the evidence to a potential employer that you can work well with others. They won't want to hire you if you can't play nice with others.

See you this fall while we are having fun at Mizzou. GO Tigers!!

[Ed. - Dr. Jim Spain is CAFNR Assistant Dean for Academic Programs and an instructor in the Department of Animal Science. Dr. Jan Dauve is Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Department of Agricultural Economics. Drs. Spain and Dauve teach introductory courses in their respective majors and have received numerous CAFNR teaching and advising awards.]